STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Budget cuts related to the ongoing migrant crisis have rocked the city over the past few months, but on Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams announced a change of course for cops and firefighters.
The mayor said the funding restoration will bring 600 new NYPD recruits to join the ranks in April with the class graduating in October. Funding will also be restored to return a fifth firefighter at 20 FDNY engine companies and maintain 190 firefighters on payroll who were not expected to be able to return to full-duty status.
“Public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity, and so everything we do is to ensure New York City remains the safest big city in America,” Adams said. “I am proud to announce that we are not only adding hundreds of additional NYPD officers to our police force this year, but also bolstering the Fire Department’s ranks. Today’s measured and reasonable restorations to the NYPD and FDNY are due, in large part, to this administration’s ability to make the right financial decisions for our city and implement creative policies as we continue to see an influx of asylum seekers”
City officials have estimated that the influx of more than 160,000 people into the five boroughs and the tens of thousands still in the city’s care will cost more than $12 billion over the next few years.
Other elected officials, including members of the City Council and Comptroller Brad Lander, have disputed the mayor linking the city’s budget woes exclusively to the migrant crisis pointing to things like raises for public sector workers and an end to federal stimulus related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
While elected officials dispute the reason for the budget cuts, a variety of programs have been cut, including at public libraries in the five boroughs.
“We are not out of the woods and have fiscal challenges in the year ahead, and that’s why we still need help from our federal and state partners to offset the costs of COVID-19…
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